Mommy Dearest
by InnocentGuilt
Summary: Tell me about your mother BJ says quietly one night while they can't sleep thanks to the blazing summer heat of Korea. pre-slash. Nothing really bad. Could be construed as a friendship fic, but I'm warped.


"Tell me about your mother," BJ says quietly one night while they can't sleep thanks to the blazing summer heat of Korea.

Then, before BJ even knows what he's done, Hawkeye is in another world, where a woman with long brown hair hums as she runs her fingers through the smoke of her cigarette. She looks at him with eyes that mirror his own and she smiles, her teeth straight and white and glinting from the fire of the hearth. Dad isn't there, for some reason or another, so they're both up late doing nothing but watching the flames flicker and dance.

_She holds her hand out to him, her long fingers outstretched to him demanding silently that he come to her. He doesn't though. She looks evil in the light that's playing off of her. Her ghostly white skin is barely warmed by the orange glow, her eyes are icy lights in the room, and her teeth seem to have sharpened some point during the night. She's like the evil queen, coming to kill all those who opposed her…_

His lips move without him being fully aware of it, beginning to spin his tale made from the memories of his mother. "She was beautiful in a very terrifying way," he says into the darkness that hovers around them. "She was tall and willowy with the most wraithlike eyes…That's the only thing she passed onto me, her eyes."

_He sits in the corner of the room, watching her with wide, frightened eyes. He had been in there with her for more than an hour, and had been positive that she hadn't known he was there. When she turned around—an eerie, slow turn of her head, craning around the armchair she's on to stare into the darkness direcly at him with her glowing, blue eyes along with a smile that doesn't look safe—he felt his heart jump and thump loudly in his chest. Now, she's getting out of her seat, walking towards him slowly, with her nightgown floating behind her as if she were a ghost. Her feet barely make a noise, and her hand is still held out to him as she calls his name in a voice that he swears isn't hers._

"She had the most unusual voice I had ever heard…and there wasn't a time she wasn't using it," he continues, pulling his arms tightly around himself, unconsciously fending off the chills that thinking of his mother induces. "She was always humming some strange tune. It used to be so bad I could hear it in my sleep…" he fades off, trying to forget what that tune used to mean for him. Already his heart is beating faster, and he can practically feel her eyes on him, hear her calling for him, 'Benny…oh, Benny.'

"Yeah?" BJ's voice startles him slightly.

_She kneels down in front of him, her smile still easing across her face as she tilts her head to the side. Her hand touches his face, her long fingers easily long enough to cover his face, but they weave into his hair with her palm pressing against his cheek. He can smell the cigarette smoke she was running her hands through earlier, and he scrunches his small face as if that will help get rid of the oder. Her smile widens, but not in a comforting way. _

_'What are you doing out of bed, Benny?" she asks him with a strangly, melodical lilt in her voice. She strokes her thumb against the side of his temple, dragging the side of her thumbnail lightly across the __skin. Gently, reassuringly she pulls her son out of his hiding space and pulls him upright in front of her, but her eyes aren't as kind as her touch. _

_He fears her like this, like any six-year-old would. So he tries to pull away from her touch, from the disgusting stench of…_

Hawkeye takes a shuddery breath. "Her hands always smelled like cigarette smoke," he says, hoping beyond hope that only he can hear the tremor in his voice. "She used to run her hands through the smoke, y'know. She loved her hands…always thought she should have been something more than a housewife and mother. She always said she would have been a great violinist. So, she would weave her fingers in and out of the smoke to watch the way her fingers moved."

He's shaking in his own cot now, but it isn't bad enough to where the entire frame is shaking with him. He can feel her touch now on his shoulders, his head. He can feel her weaving her fingers through his hair.

_She grabs his chin roughly, her fingers pressing into his still chubby cheeks and forcing her nails into his skin. She forces him to look at her, her eyes intense. "Answer me, Benny," she says, her voice never changing from that same lilting, ethereal tone. _

_He can't answer her, though. She's so scary these days…_

Hawkeye squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn't want to remember. He doesn't want to!

"Hawk? You okay?"

He hears his friend moving across the room when he doesn't respond, and it's so quiet, just like he remembers his mother's had been. He almost believes he back in his living room in the mid-1920's with his mother moving towards him ominously, so he forces his eyes open, and is thankful—who could ever think that he would be thankful—that he was in Korea, with the sweltering heat and the sound of war not too far away. BJ is hovering over him, with worried eyes, and his shaking goes down a little.

"Hawk?" BJ says again, reaching out for him. "Hawkeye?"

He moves away from the offending touch hastily, sitting up in his bed and continuing on with this story of his mother. "That's how she died, y'know. She contracted emphyzema from smoking," he was very aware that he was wringing his hands, and very aware that BJ was aware. He was even more aware that BJ was watching him worriedly. He paid it no mind, though, and kept talking, even while it was making him work himself into more of a frenzy.

_She pulls him back upstairs by his arm. He's practically stumbling over himself to keep up with her and her long strides, because she's so tall, almost as tall as Dad. She humming again too, that creepy sound that would give him so many nightmares. She pulls him to his room, and she throws him onto his bed, yanking the pillow up and holding it in the air above his head. _

_He can hear her mumble as she brings it down over his head, pressing down tightly on him, "This is your father's fault. We never needed any children!" After that he can only hear his own muffle screams, and bits of what she says as he struggles against the pillow._

Hawkeye can feel the fear in his voice as he remembers even further, can feel the tears that he felt as a little boy and the betrayal that his mother had done that to him, her own son. Slowly, he wraps his arms around himself again, flinching when it's not just his arms that come around him. He doesn't jump away from BJ this time, but instead leans into him, taking the physical comfort from this time as he struggles against his mother in his mind, again.

"I used to have a sister," he says brokenly. "I never met her, but she was there, at one point. She died about a year before I was born. Dad said she rolled over in her sleep and suffocated herself to death…"

BJ put a hand on Hawkeye's head, smoothing down his sweaty hair. "Hawk, you don't have to tell me anymore."

He didn't take notice of what had been said to him. "I don't think mom ever wanted any kids, really. She was a good, stereotypical mother and everything. She made our meals, cleaned the house, bought our clothes, did cross-stitch…but I think she hated kids. I think…" he was cut off by a small sob. "I think she hated me…and—and my sister before me. I think that's how my sister died. She did it to me too. But she was so sick, and I would struggle for so long that she was start coughing so bad, and she would get so weak…"

He was rambling, he knew it. And he knew he probably made no sense at all to BJ, but he could still see her as she let go of the pillow and he pulled it off of his face, gasping for breath. He can still see her as she doubles over coughing and shaking. He sees her as she leans over when she's finally done coughing and gives him a kiss on the forhead, saying,_ "You shouldn't wander out of bed at night, Benny. Anything could happen to you."_

He can feel lips moving against his forhead, now, saying, "You didn't have to tell me, Hawk. You didn't have too…I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's okay." BJ doesn't know what's happened, but it doesn't matter. Hawkeye's upset over something his mother had done, something catastophic.

Hawkeye, even though he's still thinking of his mother's kiss, leans into BJ, making the lips on his head, which had stopped moving, more solid. He unwraps his arms from around himself and puts them around BJ, feeling the comfort from the touch finally seep all the way into his psyche. His mother floats away from his mind, the memories of the way she spoke, smelled, and smiled washed away as his friend holds him tightly in the scalding, hot, evening air. Even though he still sees his mother holding the pillow over his face, he lets BJ rearrange the pillows on his bed so they can lie down. He let's BJ weave his fingers through his hair the way his mother's did as he rests his head on his friend's chest. And he listens to the heartbeat he was sure his mother never had.

_"Good night, Benny…"_

&$&$&$&$&

InnocentGuilt


End file.
